People of all ages and backgrounds concerned about climate change attended Wednesday’s rally at the capitol. They held up signs saying, “protect our manoomin,” “land back” and “we don’t need e-waste.” They were joined by the Bear Runner Singers from south Minneapolis who sang a wild rice honor song.  

Rise & Repair is an alliance made up of environmental organizations, faith and Indigenous groups, working together to advance legislation to protect Indigenous rights and work towards climate justice. 

Before heading to the Capitol, the alliance worked with citizens to help them talk with their legislators about issues and then met with different legislators to say why they should pass or oppose different bills.

Rise & Repair has a number of bills they are encouraging legislators to support and eight bills they want them to oppose.

Central to their platform and message is saving the state grain — wild rice, manoomin in the Ojibwe language, psin in Dakota.

One of the bills most talked about is SF 1247 the Protection of Wild Rice Act, which was introduced by Sen. Mary Kunesh, DFL-New Brighton. This act would advocate for the reduction of pesticides, which advocates says is contaminating lakes and working with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources to help protect it.

Gina Peltier is a part of the Rise & Repair coalition and is the board chair of Mukwa, a Bemidji-based Native program. She opened up the rally and is advocated for the wild rice bill. Peltier is from the Turtle Mountain Band in North Dakota.  

“Wild rice is a keystone species,” she said. “It doesn’t just feed us, but it is a true vital resource that can and does make Minnesota truly food sovereign. It cleans the water; it provides habitat for waterfowl and ducks.” 

According to Rise & Repair, part of what the bill would do is protect wild rice from boaters, who advocates say disturb wild rice beds — allowing for tribal nations and those who enjoy outdoor recreation a respectful existence. The other part of the bill would limit the exposure from pesticides and other chemicals.  

“We know that our manoomin is facing threats, and one of those, not only is the climate change and so I think it’s absolutely important, it’s vital that we do all that we can to support the resilience and the growth across our ecosystem, the environmental impacts, coupled with the centuries of colonization, land use has disrupted the important manoomin habits,” Kunesh told the crowd.  

“Minnesota’s landscape has been radically changed and we’ve drained the wetlands through ditching tile drains. We’ve dammed other areas. We’ve transformed wetlands into agriculture lands. We’ve deforested, and there are tons of environmental changes that affect the wild rice because of those things that we have done,” said Kunesh. 

SF 194, which was introduced by Kunesh to support the return of the eastern half of Upper Red Lake and nearby land in Red Lake State Forest, is currently sitting in the Environment, Climate and Legacy committee waiting for a hearing. A similar bill was introduced last year.  

Indigenous elder Mary Lyons was at the rally and said it was important to return the land.  

“It’s time to do the right thing, you know, if you want to stay in the halls of justice with your head held high, you need to give back that land,” she said.  

Rise & Repair is hopeful that the protection of wild rice will become a state law before the end of the session. They want to make sure it has legal rights, like treaty rights. 

Leanna Goose, who is one of the facilitators of Rise & Repair and is a citizen of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe said she is also hopeful a bill to protect wild rice will pass. 

“We have to stand together to protect wild rice so my children can have it and the ones who come after them. So, yeah, I’m hopeful. And I always got to keep that hope,” Goose said.

Collected from Minnesota Public Radio News. View original source here.